


La Scommessa Toscana: Part 2

by AVegetarianCannibal



Series: Slice of Life [18]
Category: Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bets & Wagers, Blow Jobs, Flirting, Italy, M/M, Teasing, fiances, tuscany
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:20:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: Will and Hannibal’s pre-nuptial chastity wager continues, but can they really keep their hands off one another for long.This time the story continues from Hannibal’s perspective, complete with ancient Roman inspiration, poetic lust, and his own kitchen creations
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Slice of Life [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/994764
Comments: 14
Kudos: 81





	La Scommessa Toscana: Part 2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shukkhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shukkhy/gifts).



> The first chapter overlaps the last chapter of the previous installment. We again visit the Buonuomo Farm, but now from Hannibal’s perspective.
> 
> Thank you to Shukkhy for your patience, friendship and ideas!!
> 
> I had formatting difficulties and I’m still working on correcting them.
> 
> See the end notes for translations.

_La seconda parte: Hannibal_

**"Le Ricette del Mostro"**

He’s always enjoyed clothes. As with a meal, the first bite is with the eye. A flourish here or there adds dimension to the way he wishes to present himself, like deftly carved French radishes or freshly picked squash blossoms added to a breakfast tray just prior to serving. 

During their time in Italy, he has, for the most part, wished to present himself as an unassuming tourist. The man in the pastel yellow golf shirt with mallard ducks all over it could never be an international criminal, except in the sartorial sense.

Even carefully considered wrinkles have their place in the costumery. 

He also likes to elicit certain responses from Will. Occasionally that means donning a pair of sandals he knows Will finds particularly humorous, and sometimes it means wearing suits in colors that flatter his hair or bring out his tan. As often as possible, he tries to dress in such a manner as to accentuate his ankles. He knows he’s succeeded when he sees the way Will’s gaze lingers, unable to even get as far as the sandals mere inches southward.

He keeps all this in mind as he picks out his wardrobe for their vineyard outing. If Will is insistent upon continuing their chastity wager, then Hannibal must meet action with equal and opposite reaction.

While Will is dropping Cephi off at the canine daycare, Hannibal picks out a pair of capri trousers in a lightweight chambray that’s the color of salmon mousse whipped with just a touch too much cream. The slightly warm undertone to the pastel color will make his tan look deliciously caramelized. He pairs the trousers with a slightly wrinkled white linen shirt that he leaves untucked. The disheveled appearance should bring to Will’s mind memories of their tussles in bed when they’ve nearly ruined their sheets. Hannibal allows himself a smile at his own cleverness.

“I’m back!” Will calls out from downstairs.

“Did the daycare seem adequate?” Hannibal calls back. “You can’t always tell from these online reviews!”

“It looked very nice,” Will says, coming up the stairs. “The attendant instantly fell in love with Cephi.”

“Well of course,” Hannibal says as he straps on a pair of brown leather sandals with polished nickel buckles. “She’s an imminently loveable dog.”

“You look good,” Will says from the doorway. “Very… _mmm_.”

Hannibal turns to see him leaning against the doorframe, hands stuffed into his pockets as if to remind himself not to touch. His look approaches lecherousness, so Hannibal knows he’s succeeded.

“But look how wrinkled this shirt is,” Hannibal says, glancing down at himself with a small pout. “I should change.” 

“Don’t!” Will practically shouts. Hannibal blinks at him. “I mean, if we want to get through the vineyard tour in time to pick up Cephi, we’d better leave now.”

“Very well,” Hannibal sighs, but smiles again the instant Will turns his back.

***

For once, thoughts of ravishing Will or being ravished _by_ Will take a back seat to other prospects. There’s the promise of experiencing the Buonuomo family farm’s terroir, studying their ancient mill machinery, and gleaning the matriarch’s centuries’ old recipes. Well, perhaps not an entire back seat, exactly. But at least his mind and body must now share an iota of space with other pursuits.

The late spring sun as they get out of their car at the family farm is already blazing. Hannibal feels the heat searing at the slight sunburn already coloring his cheeks. Will’s hair looks nearly gold in the light, as if it were dusted with flecks of the mica that lace the volcanic soil. He’s always stunningly beautiful, of course, but he has a remarkable way of withdrawing into himself, dampening his radiance when circulating among outsiders, to render himself somewhat invisible to prying eyes. He’s not bothering to hide now--not one bit.

Indeed, he’s tossing his hair so that it catches and scatters the light, and smiling at the farm’s patriarch when they’re greeted. His short-sleeved denim shirt, unbuttoned nearly to his xiphoid process, strains at the musculature of his broad shoulders before clinging down his back and disappearing into the waistband of his unusually tight khaki trousers. His shapely buttocks press against the sueded twill as if straining for freedom. It’s practically obscene.

Hannibal stops staring at Will’s forbidden derriere in time to see a tall young man jogging towards them.

“Carlino,” the patriarch says to the newcomer. Hannibal vaguely recalls that he introduced himself as Zio Domenico. “Please make sure our guests have maps and itineraries, or whatever else they need, should they choose to explore on their own.”

“Don’t go to any trouble,” Will says with a toothy smile. He winks at Carlino. “I’m just going to wander around for a while. So much beautiful scenery to enjoy.”

Hannibal bristles. Is Will flirting with this boy? Is he even twenty yet? He smells like onions and dirt. Dirty onions. His mud-dark hair is so unruly he can’t even keep it in place with his hands and his green eyes are too bright by far. He’s an assault to the senses.

“I’d like an itinerary,” Hannibal says, holding out his hand. Carlino doesn’t even look his way, so tangled he is at the end of Will’s fishing line. Hannibal snaps his fingers to break the spell. “Might I have an itinerary?” He nearly addresses him as “little boy” _in Italiano_ but doesn’t want Will to think he’s bothered.

He’s _not_ bothered. He’s… cautious. It’s only sensible. It’s completely normal. Hannibal is a completely normal level of cautious.

Carlino excuses himself with pinkened cheeks. “I’m sorry! Of course! Un momento, per favore.” He only looks at Will before running back towards the farmhouse. 

Hannibal might as well not even exist.

He turns to remark to Will on the boy’s rudeness, but stops at the sight of Will very obviously holding back a grin.

“Something amusing?” Hannibal asks.

Will shakes his head. “Just decided I’d rather go on the scheduled tour with you. That’s all!” He turns that grin on Hannibal, brighter than the blazing sun.

Something, Hannibal knows, is going on.

He smiles back and decides not to let his suspicions show. For now.

***

They go for a tasting of the family’s assorted olive oils in an auxiliary kitchen near the eastern edge of the orchard. The oils are fine, with some of them falling tragically short of perfection due to the previous year’s uneven growing season. But it’s proving bothersome to concentrate on his palate when that soiled onion boy keeps ducking into the kitchen like a rat looking for scraps.

“Do you need anything?” Carlino asks the woman who’s dishing out slices of bread and oil. Five minutes later he returns and asks her again. “Are you sure you don’t need anything? I’m on my way back to the house if you need anything.”

He’s clearly just coming up with excuses to gawk at Will. He doesn’t even try to hide the way his gazes linger. 

After Carlino’s third intrusion, the woman points him to the door and all but gives him a shove. “Leave us alone! For heaven’s sake, what’s gotten into you today!”

What’s gotten into him, indeed? Hannibal can think of several things that _might_ get into him. A marinade, perhaps. Or a simple and savory stuffing.

In his memory palace, Hannibal picks up a beautiful hand-blown glass pen he bought ages ago in Venice. A cut crystal well contains a glossy black ink he made himself out of honey, doves’ egg yolks and lamp black. Taking a moment to enjoy the anticipation, he opens the recipe box he left behind in Baltimore and selects an old creation he can edit for the circumstances.

_“Involtini di_ ~~_Vitella_ ~~ _Carlino al Latte”_

 _8 slices of_ ~~_veal_ ~~ _Carlino_

_4 slices ham_

_500 g spinach, tender new growth preferred_

_400 ml milk with top cream_

_30 g fresh churned butter_

_20 g strained olive oil_

_flour for dredging_

_3 garlic cloves (less if onion smell persists)_

_nutmeg_

_sage_

_rosemary_

_salt and white pepper_

_Tear the spinach if needed and wilt in pan over low heat. Squeeze to remove excess water. Explain to the meat why it was wrong to behave so wantonly with Will. Thinly slice and flatten the meat with a smooth mallet, season with salt and pepper, top with half slice of ham and one-eighth the spinach. Roll up the meat and tie with sturdy twine._

_Lightly dredge in flour and saute in butter and olive oil. Add garlic, milk, and dash of nutmeg. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and add other herbs. Cover and cook for fifteen minutes until sauce is luxurious in a way Carlino could never be. Politely offer him an involtino if he’s still in any condition to enjoy one._

By the time Hannibal puts away his pen and ink, it’s time to move on to the next part of the tour.

“You looked like you were deep in thought,” Will says at his side. 

“Thinking of recipes for everything the Buonuomo family has to offer,” Hannibal says.

“The olive oil?” Will asks.

“To start,” Hannibal says with a satisfied hum.

***

When they reach the family’s garden, Hannibal considers asking for a pinch of the seeds of the poppies the family has been breeding for generations. A harvest of blue-black seeds would be welcome in any number of recipes, but when would he and Will ever stay in one place long enough to grow the flowers to maturity? He has the whole world to explore with Will and they’ve barely begun.

After a tour of the mill is cut short by repairs, the impudent Carlino takes over showing the guests around the vineyards. Hannibal carefully watches as the farm boy positions Will for the most advantageous views of the tour. He practically has Will in his lap as he crouches down in the soil, explaining how to taste little pinches of it to test for excessive or deficient nutrients. Hannibal pretends he’s taking notes about the process on his phone. 

_“Porchetta sfacciato”_

_Gut, thoroughly wash and trim the most sfacciato young pig available, removing silverskin but leaving exterior fat for cooking. Fill the abdominal cavity with seasonally available ingredients. (Preserved orange slices? Rosemary… cherries… sage. Cipollini onions. Liver marinated in cherry wine, perhaps?) Secure incision and generously salt entire pig. Roast over low heat, turning as necessary to ensure even cooking and crisping of the fat._

Hannibal looks up from his phone and frowns at Carlino, who is currently holding up some soil for Will to smell. His arms, exposed by sleeves rolled up above his elbows, are surprisingly sinewy and muscular for someone his age. There isn’t much fat on him, it seems. The integrity of the dish would be somewhat compromised if slabs of fat from another animal were incorporated into the dish to make up for the lack, and Hannibal is loath to compromise his cooking.

He saves his recipe notes anyway, though. Just in case.

Carlino shows the other visitors the soil samples, then pats a small amount to the tip of his tongue. “Zio Dom will need to add some potassium after the harvest,” he announces, bowing slightly as the visitors clap for his simplistic trick. Cephi regularly shows off better tricks. “But only a little potassium! The human palate is better than a laboratory analysis, as long as you’ve got a talented and very experienced tongue!”  
Hannibal rolls his eyes as the group claps again. Eating so much soil. No wonder he smells like dirty onions.

Will wanders a short distance away as the women in the tour group begin crowding around Carlino. Hannibal crouches under a grapevine so he can inspect it for any hint of botrytis infection despite the dry weather, and certainly not because he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s spying on his fiance.

Much to his agitation, Hannibal notes that Carlino leaves his many admirers behind and runs after Will. He’s so transparent in his desires that it’s frankly embarrassing. It’s like an sickly trout throwing itself onto the fisherman’s line.

“Did you enjoy my tour of the vineyard, signore?” 

“You and your tongue were very educational,” Will says. He winks for the second time since their arrival.

Hannibal tears a leaf from the vine and crushes it in his fingers. How much potassium would the vines need if he were to spill a copious amount of blood beneath them?

He watches as Will proceeds to blatantly flirt with the farm boy--and to a degree that goes well beyond his inherent reliance on flirtation as social lubrication. 

Hannibal digs his fingers into the soil as Will gives the boy what he so desperately wants: the knowledge that he’s been _seen_. 

Will teases apart the boy’s simple dreams of going to America to become an actor and encourages him to remain true to himself. Rather than forsake his provincial upbringing, he should embrace it. Like the wine produced here, Carlino has the terroir of the land and weather. Will even takes hold of Carlino’s hand, examining the calluses there as if they were filled with secret meaning. His voice is low and soft and lulling. 

Unfortunately, this is only the start of what Carlino wants. 

“Oh, signore,” Carlino sighs, all but ripping off his clothes then and there. “The way you talk makes my head spin. I… I don’t know what to think.”

Hannibal, realizing that he’s been too generous in his previous thinking, takes the recipe box from his memory palace and extracts a fresh card. He inks his dip pen and writes.

  
_Not all meat merits elegant preparation. Sometimes it’s best to just make cheap hot dogs out of him. It. Serve with mass market buns and yellow mustard purchased at a discount._

He tucks the card and pen back where they belong and takes a long, slow breath in trying to calm himself. Nobody has ever had the power to make his heartbeat crash like thunder in his breast--nobody but Will. Hannibal feels the nerves in his hands spark, enlivened. He could raze the entire vineyard and every building to the ground. He could tear apart the Buonuomo family and every unfortunate tourist who gets in his way.

Will, of course, would gladly help him. He’s been wanting to hunt again, going as far back as Adriana’s boorish stepson in Argentina, before the fool had the poor manners to die on his own.

Carlino is inviting Will to go for a walk with him and Hannibal realizes his heart has been beating so loudly that he hasn’t heard much of the most recent conversation. Until Will, he was so much better at maintaining a steady heartbeat.

Hannibal walks towards them, without even willing his legs to move. 

“Signore?” Carlino says. “Do you want to go with me?”

“I’m afraid my fiance wouldn’t approve,” Will says.

_Fiance._

Hearing the word calms Hannibal just enough that the murderous urge becomes containable.

Of _course_ it wasn’t Carlino that Will was trying to reel in. The malodorous farm boy was only the bait, as unwitting as a wriggling earthworm. 

Hannibal, ever the trout, bites onto the end of Will’s line and pulls.

“Your fiance wouldn’t approve of what?” he asks with a smile that shows his teeth.

Carlino looks as if he’s been struck, and he’s very lucky that he truly wasn’t. His eyes shine and he looks away, blinking. He _is_ a beauty, in a coarse sort of way, and he doesn’t smell quite as strongly of onions as Hannibal first detected.

“I-I only thought you were his friend or-or his uncle,” Carlino says, glancing at Hannibal before quickly looking away again. “Like Zio Dom--like Domenico is to me. I didn’t realize. _Scusi, per favore._ I apologize.”

He flashes one last pained look at Will before turning away and running back towards the farmhouse. 

“That poor kid.” Will sighs and clucks his tongue. “I think I may have broken his heart.”

“My cunning Will,” Hannibal says. He keeps his voice low as he always does when not using their aliases. Will brightens like the sharp edge of a knife. “You promised you wouldn’t seduce me, so you did it by proxy. I was right to call you the god of the hillside, you know. Gods can be as cruel and capricious as they are generous and beautiful.”

Will blatantly luxuriates under the attention. He lifts his chin and tosses his hair and gives Hannibal a victorious look. When Will swallows, Hannibal follows the movement, looking down to the open front of Will’s shirt. He can see Will’s pulse in the hollow of his throat, thudding as Hannibal’s own had. He wants to put his mouth against the very spot and feel the soft percussion of it in his teeth.

It’s Will who moves first, stepping up to Hannibal like a challenge. He leans in and sighs softly just before Hannibal’s ear.

“What do you want to do about me?” Will asks.

Hannibal stands absolutely still. “What do you believe I should do?”

Will pulls back just enough for their eyes to meet. His expression reminds Hannibal more than a little of the time they dined on ortolans, in defiance of whatever judgmental God may exist, looking away only when the savoring of their meal was so intense their eyelids fell closed without either of them willing it. There’s the same questioning look now, the same thrill…

The same hunger.

“You could take me somewhere,” Will says. He smiles at the few tourists nearby. “Somewhere… _quiet_. Where prying eyes wouldn’t be able to see us.”

Hannibal has enough control to not smirk at him. Will chose his words carefully. If Hannibal takes the opportunity offered to him, does he then fail at their wager? He could turn on his heel and go back to the car, leaving Will unsatisfied in more than one way.

Damn it. His head is too muddled to think clearly. He feels drugged by his own body, from the ebbing adrenaline at seeing Will toy with Carlino to the flooding of oxytocin at being so near to Will.

He takes Will’s hand and pulls him behind the tool shed at the edge of the vineyard. The sunniest wall is rough from need of fresh paint and Hannibal presses Will to it with his body. He gets a deep, soft laugh in response. Hannibal falls upon him in a ravenous state, devouring him kisses from his jaw to the golden tympanic skin of his throat where he’s finally able to feel his heart beating.

He jerks aside the collar of Will’s shirt to expose his much-scarred shoulder and kisses that, too. He sucks a bruise along Will’s collarbone, and then another. Will laughs in breaths that are shaped like the word _yes_. Again and again, until they become moans.

Hannibal reaches up to press a finger to Will’s lips, quieting him. “Do you want all the family to come running? You’ll break the farm boy’s heart all over again.”

“Better keep my mouth occupied, then.” Will nips the end of his finger and holds it in his teeth.

Hannibal drops to his knees and pulls Will down with him. They are hidden behind the poppies growing in riots of color against the shed, a color like the barrier of blood inside his skull. It feels like being inside his own head with Will, nearly as secret a haven as their shared memory palace, despite the proximity to the tourists. He lets the sensation expand within his mind, building a bridge out to meet Will, and finds he can no longer tell if he’s inside his own head or Will’s.

Their kisses are unhurried. Languorous and deep and full of knowledge that only they can possibly share. It is one thing to know the shape of one’s own mouth, but another treasure entirely to know how it fits against another’s. That treasure is all the richer for recalling there was a time he never thought it would be his. Not like this.

“I’d far rather have this than all the secrets of the subatomic universe,” he thinks. “I’d rather know the combined warmth of our breath than see the first atoms bursting into life.”

He’d been teasing Will when he said merely kissing one another could bring them to orgasm, but he feels it building now. He feels it nearing as inevitably as the setting sun drapes a sillage of cooling air over their bodies. How long have they been kissing, clutched to one another behind a veil of poppies? An hour… two?

He feels the slightest gasp from Will like a fraction of his own breath has been stolen from his mouth. At nearly the same moment, he feels the warmth of his own release, wetting the front of his trousers.

Will settles back just a bit. “Did you just…?” He reaches a hand between them to feel the evidence. “I did, too.”

Hannibal nods. “And only from our kisses.”

Will laughs, then presses his lips together against the sound of his own laughter. Whispering, he says, “I actually thought you were joking when you said we might come just from kissing.”

“So did I,” Hannibal says.

It takes some moments to disentangle from their embrace, and his legs feel heavy and a bit numb from holding still for so long. As soon as he starts moving again, warmth comes flooding into his limbs. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. It’s like being drunk, but not foggy.

He helps Will to his feet, and wraps one arm around his waist to steady him. They stagger out of the garden that way, and pause only to glance over toward the farmhouse. The tourists are still there, and there’s an air of festivity with strings of lights hung across the back porch. People laugh and eat freshly grilled fish and bread, and toast the family with glasses of wine.

Hannibal finds that he’s wildly hungry, having thought about food throughout the day while only eating tiny corners of bread with oil. He’s not hungry enough to join the other tourists, though, in his dirt-stained and sticky-wet trousers. There are perfectly delicious leftovers back home anyway, and they need to hurry to pick up Cephi before the daycare closes. She’ll be so ecstatic to see them again, and especially after Hannibal offers her a perfectly poached egg as an apology for leaving her for the day.

Will is quiet for several minutes after they get back to the car. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and gnaws on his lower lip.

“I... think today was another tie,” he says, slowly. “Don’t you?”

Hannibal keeps a laugh to himself. “You’re not willing to admit defeat?”

Will scoffs. “Far from it! Are you?”

“It hasn’t crossed my mind,” Hannibal says. “I will admit to a tie, but only because I’m so pleasantly relaxed now.”

“Then our wager continues,” Will says. He drops a hand to Hannibal’s thigh and gives it a squeeze rather closer to his crotch than is strictly sportsmanlike.

Hannibal smiles and maintains an air of outward calm as he begins to plot his next move. 

  
  


**"di tanto in tanto"**

He has no next move.

For as often as he’s prided himself for having many courses of action available to him, usually by his own careful machination, Hannibal finds himself somewhat puzzled now as he explores the refrigerator for breakfast options. 

He’s also puzzled by how he should proceed with their prenuptial wager.

There’s a figurine of Venus on the windowsill above the sink. “Any suggestions?” he asks her, then shakes his head. It’s a tacky little mass-produced trinket, possibly left by the previous renters. “Never mind. I’ll work it out.”

He’s not frustrated in the way most would perceive frustration. No, he’s feeling… _intrigued_ . As has been the case since the day he first met Will, he feels challenged and _enlivened_. It’s almost more of a challenge now than it was in the early days, even. Aside from the logistics of getting back and forth to Minnesota and acquiring the taxidermied stag’s head, creating the “copycat” tableau had been simple. The idea back then to capture Will’s attention had come to him easily and his constraints were few. The opposite is true now.

They’re not allowed to touch one another with intent to seduce, or to lure one another with blatant displays of one’s undressed body. They’ve also now forbidden using third parties to provoke jealous responses, thanks to Carlino Buonuomo’s bit part in the play, but Hannibal wouldn’t want to venture down that path regardless. A jealous Will is glorious and bloody (Hannibal spares a moment’s thought for Robbie’s rotting corpse in Paris) but he’s also prone to unpredictability. Hannibal remains averse to the slightest possibility of getting caught. They’re not even officially married yet.

He’s still peering into the refrigerator when Will comes down the stairs, yawning and sleepy-eyed with his hair a stunning mess. As soon as Hannibal glances at his thin undershirt and blue boxer shorts, inspiration finally strikes.

“You making breakfast or we gonna get something out?” Will asks, heading straight for the coffee pot.

“We’ve been eating out far too often lately,” Hannibal says. He smiles sweetly at Will. “I still prefer to be careful about what I put into my body, so I thought I’d make us a protein scramble.”

“Sounds great,” Will says. “I’m half starving.”

Hannibal reaches into his memory palace for his exquisite pen and jots down the simple outline of a new recipe.

_"Proteine e uova di Venere"_

_Calabrese sausage, extra hot_

_Small sweet tomatoes, halved_

_Arugula_

_Eggs_

_Fresh black pepper_

_Large onions, halved, roasted and hollowed out_

Hannibal dresses two handfuls of arugula with a slick of thick, green olive oil and pinches of sea salt and pepper. He arranges the glistening leaves on his and Will’s plates with a slight hollow in the center. When the onions are roasted, he excavates all but the two outer rings which form a golden sort of shell-shaped bowl. These rest atop the arugula and receive spoonfuls of softly scrambled eggs and sausage until they are overflowing with plenty. He carefully adds smaller spoonfuls of egg and Calabrese to overflow the edge of the onion bowls that will face their famished audience. The tomatoes are then nestled in the arugula with their cut sides pointed up in dripping wet invitation.

By the time Will returns from walking Cephi, the meal is complete.

He raises his brows at the display on the table. “I thought you were making a protein scramble.”

“ _Proteine e uova di Venere_ ,” Hannibal says, pulling out a chair for Will. “Venus’s protein and eggs. Your attire this morning when you came downstairs reminded me of the first time I cooked for you. I wanted to pay homage to that fateful moment, but with a sense of inspiration from Italy.”

Will blinks at his plate before he recognizes something familiar. “Botticelli’s _Birth of Venus_ in breakfast form,” he says. “Right? You do love old Sandro. The onion is like the shell arriving on the tide. Eggs representing, what? The feminine divine? New life?”

“Primarily, they’re just good to eat,” Hannibal says, sitting down across from Will. “Dig in before your goddess symbolism gets cold.”

Will slices apart the onion, incorporating it with the eggs and sausage, before shoveling a heaping forkful into his mouth. His eyebrows immediately vault for his hairline.

“Something wrong?” Hannibal asks, taking a smaller bite.

“The sausage is hotter than I was expecting,” Will says. He sucks a cooling breath over his tongue. “Was Venus known to be an especially spicy goddess?”

“Known as Aphrodite to the Greeks,” Hannibal says. “Given gifts of fire and incense by her worshipers here. I should think she was especially spicy, yes.”

Will eats a mouthful of arugula. “Jesus! Fuck! This is hot, too!’

Hannibal has to stop himself from wriggling with pleasure. “Arugula does have a natural pepperiness, bolstered by a generous addition of fresh black pepper. For the purposes of this dish, it mimics the prickling of seafoam as it dries on the skin. Eat some tomatoes to cool off.”

Will plucks one of the juicy red halves off his plate and pops it into his mouth. His eyelids flutter at the sensation of relief washing over his palate. He tilts his head back and lets out a deep, thankful groan.

The sound is like a jolt to Hannibal’s nerves. “Good?” he asks. His throat feels dry suddenly. The muscles low in his abdomen tighten.

“ _So_ good,” Will moans. He pops another tomato into his mouth. “Ah, God. The way the salty-sweet juice just _bursts_ onto my tongue and drips down my throat… _mmm_.”

Hannibal forgets his own breakfast as he watches Will alternate bites of nearly unbearably hot sausage with quenching tomato. The last, perfect half is savored for an especially long while, complete with ecstatic breaths of soft laughter. Hannibal finds that his traitorous cock is already half hard just from watching Will eat.

Will blinks as if coming to his senses. Fine beads of sweat are gathered on his brow and the lines of his neck. “I don’t remember enjoying the first protein scramble you made me _quite_ that much.”

“I imagine it would’ve been irredeemably unprofessional,” Hannibal says, finally continuing on with his own meal.

Will leans back in his chair, stretching. “Did you think about making a pass at me then?”

“Beyond constructing the ‘field kabuki’ for you?” Hannibal makes a chastising sound. “That _also_ would’ve been irredeemably unprofessional.”

Will leans back in his chair. “What would you have done if I’d answered the motel room door in the nude and pulled you inside by the lapels of your ugly brown sport coat?”

“You wouldn’t have done either of those things,” Hannibal says. He maintains a visage of calm as he continues eating. 

Will snorts. “Humor me.”

“I would have gently but firmly extricated myself from your sweaty, lustful grasp,” Hannibal says. “I would have acted as your potential therapist and reassured you that in stressful times it’s not uncommon to reach out. You would’ve been embarrassed at first, and grateful later as you regained your senses.”

“You’re no fun,” Will says with an exaggerated pout.

“I’m merely attempting to remain true to our past selves,” Hannibal says. He bites into a tomato and licks the juice from his lips. He smiles at will. “As I am also remaining true to our wager.”

Will sighs and throws up his arms in defeat. “Fine, fine! I’ll go take a shower. Alone.”

“Don’t take too long!” Hannibal calls after him. “If we’re late to the market we’ll miss out on the best produce!”

***

“Wanna come take a nap with me?” Will asks when they return from the market. He hugs Hannibal from behind. “Just a nap. I promise to keep my hands to myself unless you can bear spooning with me.”

“Your invitation is more than tempting,” Hannibal says. He turns just enough to give Will a quick peck on the cheek before he sets about putting away their groceries. “But the dinner I have in mind is time-consuming in its preparation. You go rest up without me. Have you not been sleeping well?”

Will smiles a little too brightly. “It’s just getting a bit warm, that’s all! Thought I’d sleep my way through it.” He holds his arms out to Cephi. “How about you?”

She looks back and forth between them before jumping into one of the chairs at the table.

Will laughs. “Not even our dog wants to take a nap with me?”

Hannibal rubs the top of Cephi’s head as he walks by. “You know she likes to stay with me if I’m cooking. I’m sure she intends no offense.”

She yawns and curls up in the chair.

“Fine, fine,” Will says with a sigh. He returns Hannibal’s kiss, lingering slightly longer than is fair, but keeps his hands to himself. “If you change your mind, though…”

Hannibal shoos him away. “Go on, now.”

As Will disappears up the stairs, Hannibal takes out a recipe he’s been working on in his memory palace.

_“Zuppa di pollo con gnocchi”_

_For the gnocchi:_

_500 g russet or other dry potato, boiled with beets and pomegranate syrup_

_150 g flour_

_2 dove’s eggs, beaten_

_fine sea salt_

_For the soup:_

_leftover chicken, torn by hand_

_chicken stock_

_handful chiffonade of arugula_

_onion, thinly sliced and fried in leftover Calabrese fat_

_bouquet garni of hot pepper, black peppercorns, star anise_

_lemon juice and olive oil drizzled at serving_

_Important notes: Cook the prepared gnocchi separately! Cooking them in the leftover potato water with the beets and pomegranate syrup will imbue them with deeper color. They should resemble small, raw hearts. Drain and rinse, toss with olive oil to keep from sticking. Add to finished soup only at the last moment and top with the chiffonade without obscuring the gnocchi._

After hours of love and labor, Hannibal squeezes a judicious amount of lemon juice over each bowl of carefully prepared soup. He folds two napkins into fanned flowers and arranges them on the table.

“Dinner’s ready!” he calls out.

A moment later, he hears Will moving around the library upstairs. “Be there in a second!”

Earlier in their journey, Hannibal might have been more reluctant to harken back to this moment of his friendship with Will. It was a moment fraught with unspoken danger, when everything nearly fell apart. Even now, his heart races with anticipation.

“Wow,” Will says as he arrives at the table.

“Zuppa di pollo con gnocchi,” Hannibal says. “The gnocchi were made with antique tools, by my hand, of potatoes and dove’s eggs cooked in a broth of beets and pomegranates for both aesthetic and nutritive purposes.”

“You made me chicken soup,” Will says, sitting across from him. “Inspired again to recreate and reimagine a meal from our early acquaintance? Do I have a fever you haven’t told me about?”

Hannibal feels himself blushing like a boy. “Although you raise my temperature every time I see you, you do not yourself have a fever.” He raises a spoonful to his lips to blow on the scalding broth.

“Do aphrodisiacs help or hinder with that?” Will asks. Hannibal blinks and pauses his blowing. “I’ve been up there researching ancient Roman medicine for the aspiringly horny. Pomegranates are a favorite.”

“So you’ve discovered something you find intriguing,” Hannibal says, and sips from his spoon.

Will snorts. “You cited Aphrodite by name this morning,” he says. “You’re not as good at hiding your evil plans as you used to be.”

“Just from you,” Hannibal says. He gives Will a small wink.

Will winks back. “Well, you’re eating your own cooking, too, so if aphrodisiacs actually work at least we’re on equal footing.”

They eat in companionable silence--or mostly silence. Every few bites, Will makes appreciative little noises such as rapturous sighing and moaning that sounds like a prelude to sexual climax. He punctuates these vocal displays with licking spilled broth off his thumb and lower lip. Hannibal tries to compel away his burgeoning erection but his body is a feral creature that obeys no master.

“Adding your own touch of spice to the meal?” Hannibal asks after one especially explosive moan.

“What do you mean?” Will asks, all wide-eyed innocence.

“If someone were to listen at our kitchen window,” Hannibal says, “they might assume you were mid-coitus.”

“Oh?” His innocence radiates even more brightly. “Dear heavens! What else might they assume?”

Hannibal gets up to take his empty bowl to the sink. “That your fiance is an expert lover. On that count, they would at least be correct.”

After a moment, Will follows him and Hannibal finds himself backed up against the kitchen counter.

“Imagine that it’s the first time you brought me chicken soup,” Will says. “It’s not tonight. It’s years ago. We both taste like ginger and wolfberries and your strange black chicken.” Hannibal would swear he could smell the ginger now, just from the evocation. “I thank you by keeping you from leaving my hospital room. I want to learn just how expert a lover you are.”

“You wouldn’t have done that,” Hannibal says, fighting to keep from melting against Will’s body. “And if you had, I would have turned you away, against my own desires.”

“Because it would’ve been irredeemably unprofessional?” Will asks, looking up at him. “Not all of your actions back then were strictly professional, Doctor.”

Hannibal allows himself to brush his fingers through Will’s hair, from his brow to the back of his head. “You weren’t the only one who was adept at building forts.”

Will sighs and leans into his touch. “So we were both experts at compartmentalizing.”

“Quite so,” Hannibal agrees. “And experts at stubbornness, as well.”

Will raises an eyebrow at him. “I’m not quitting this wager, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

Hannibal mimics his expression. “Nor am I.”

Will backs away and gives him a small but rather formal bow. “Dinner was delicious, Doctor. If you change your mind… _about anything_ … I’ll be returning to the study.”

Even after all these years, hearing Will refer to him by his professional title still sends a little jolt to his senses. He could nearly swoon. His insides float in a sea of his body. Will knows it, of course. Will knows nobody else can make him feel that way with a word, and he delights in it as much as Hannibal delights in concocting their meals.

He watches Will make his way back up the stairs and it takes nearly everything in the combined forces of his mind and body to keep from following after him.

Luckily, he’s more determined than ever to reinvent their next meal.

***

Anticipating that Will may once again press him to imagine a romance that happened earlier in their acquaintance, Hannibal searches his memory for a moment that would not have left him professionally or romantically incredulous.

Was it the moment that Will confronted him in his kitchen and held him at gunpoint? The exhilaration of that encounter is still thrilling to think about, even after years of sharing his body and soul with Will. Will had been so full of rage, but not _just_ rage. His demeanor was flirtatious… seductive. If Will had torn off his clothes there in the kitchen, Hannibal isn’t sure that he would’ve turned him away.

Nor is he certain he would’ve accepted such a bold advance, however. Suspicion may have stayed his hands, and other anatomical parts.

What about the night in the stables? Hannibal had allowed himself to hold Will, to caress his trigger hand and his beautiful face. Will had allowed the touch, and even welcomed it. The look in his storm-blue eyes was as haunted as it was inviting. Will could have--perhaps even would have--built a new fort for Hannibal that night, very near the one he named Enemy. After a moment’s shock, and several more moments of epiphany, he would have named it _Lover_.

But no. Any motivation would have been tainted by that pathetic social worker. Just as Hannibal had stopped Will before he could kill for the wrong reasons, he would have stopped Will from falling into bed with him. 

He realizes the first possible chance they may have had was the night they dined on ortolans together. The experience had been so divinely erotic and the most sensually intimate of Hannibal’s life up to that point. If Will had reached across the table for his hand, Hannibal would not have pulled away.

It would be impossible to acquire ortolans now… or close enough to impossible that even trying would likely expose their whereabouts just as surely as displaying a murder tableau in the Sistine Chapel.

Hannibal closes his eyes, takes a long, slow breath, and begins to create something new and old all at once.

_"Cuori di Uccelli"_

_Ingredients:_

_Puff pastry to make four squares, rolled very thin, measuring three inches per side_

_Two squares “Porcelana” chocolate from Amedei, halved_

_200 grams fresh, perfect strawberries (small)_

_Sea salt, large crystal_

_120 ml Liquore Strega_

_Neutral oil for deep frying_

_Method:_

_Macerate strawberries in Strega for twenty minutes._

_Atop each square of pastry, place two or three crystals of sea salt. Chocolate on top of that, and finally a strawberry. Fold pastry to evoke an avian shape. All edges must be firmly sealed to prevent release of alcohol into the oil! Fry in medium hot oil until pastry is puffed and golden. At serving, surround with remaining strawberries and flambe, adding additional Liquore Strega if necessary._

The next evening’s meal begins with the _involtini_ he recently revised in his memory palace, although without the revised ingredients. 

He dips his middle finger into the sauce as it simmers, but before he can taste it for seasoning, Will swoops in and takes his wrist.

“Let me,” Will says, and licks the sauce from his finger. “Mm. Delicious. Perfect.”

“Unfair,” Hannibal says, but doesn’t pull his hand away even as Will licks his finger again.

“I’m just seeing if it’s got enough salt,” Will says.

“Does it?” Hannibal asks.

“Tastes good enough on you,” Will says.

Hannibal rolls his eyes, but he’s not displeased. “Sit. Try not to be naughty for the remainder of dinner.”

Will casts a curious eye at his plate as Hannibal sets it down before him. “I don’t remember you making me anything like this before. Have you decided to quit recreating our early meals together?”

“The night isn’t over yet,” Hannibal says as he sits down. “I was inspired to make this dish while we were visiting the Buonuomo property.”

Will doesn’t try to hide his mischievous smile. “Did you go back there to get the farm boy?”

“I considered it,” Hannibal says. He waits until Will pops his first bite into his mouth before doing the same. “Do you like it?”

In answer, Will hurries to cut his next bite. It’s larger than would be considered polite, and somewhat lewdly bulges his cheek as he savors it. The creamy, glistening sauce clings to the ledge of his lower lip. Will slurps it into his mouth and moans in appreciation.

“Mm, it’s delicious,” he says when he finally comes up for air.

“You say that about everything I make,” Hannibal says.

“Everything you make is delicious,” Will says with a shrug. “I’ll run out of words before you run out of ways to please my tongue--long before.”

Hannibal is certain he’s glowing from the praise, even knowing that Will chose his words for innuendo’s sake.

At the end of the main course, Will uses his index and middle fingers to wipe the last of the sauce off his plate. With a softly defiant look in his eyes, he licks them clean while Hannibal watches. He could chastise Will for such crude manners, but he decides to take the blatant attempt at seduction as a compliment to his cooking.

Hannibal retrieves the dessert plates from the counter by the stove. “Do these remind you of something?”

Will frowns at the _cuori_ and shakes his head. “You didn’t make me many desserts back then.”

“I’m not overly fond of sweets,” Hannibal says. “Too cloying, I often find. Perhaps this will help.”

He strikes a long match and sets the strawberries ablaze. The flames are low and sputtering, with the Strega somewhat diluted by the juice from the fruit, but the display is enough to pluck a note from Will’s memory.

“The ortolans?” he asks. The flames die back and Will leans over his plate to inhale the fragrance wafting up to meet him. “Ortolans in dessert form? The liquor smells… like a garden growing alongside a river. Woodsy. Green. Flowery. Irises? It smells like a place a bird would enjoy living.”

Will intuiting the reasons for the choice of aperitif has Hannibal nearly dizzy with delight. He picks up one of the pastry birds and nods for Will to do the same.

“Liquore Strega… witches’ liquor,” Hannibal says. “Brings the _cuori di uccelli_ , or birds’ hearts, to life. _Buon appetito_.”

He’s just as thrilled now to watch Will eating the dessert as he was to watch him devouring the forbidden ortolans. Defying God with decadent cruelty was, in truth, such a small factor in his enjoyment back then, because even the divine was rendered microscopic simply by sharing Will’s company. Sitting across from him and watching him as closely as he himself was being watched was the truest feast they shared up to that point.

The pastry shatters in his mouth as delicately and crisply as the skin of a minuscule bird. The bittersweet warm chocolate and fleshy strawberry burst over his tongue. The Florentine iris and earthy saffron of the Strega still taste like the remnants of life and the crystals of salt crunch between his teeth before quickly dissolving away like a sip of hot blood. The flavors linger together as a haunting spirit after the substance of the bite is gone.

Even after more than two years together, watching Will consuming his creation is more than rewarding. It’s… enlivening. Watching him slowly insert the pastry into his open mouth with a look of unvarnished hunger, Hannibal forgets to breathe for several moments. His pulse races even as Will takes his time to chew and savor his mouthful.

Finally, Will leans across the table in the conspiratorial pose of a man about to share a secret. “If I’d been more honest with myself that night, I might have thanked you for the meal.”

“You did thank me, as I recall,” says Hannibal. “I handed you your coat as you lingered in the doorway.”

“I didn’t thank you like this,” Will says. He picks up Hannibal’s left hand and brings it to his lips. He kisses the inside of his wrist where the old scar is nearly invisible now. “Not like this, either.” He presses another kiss to the inside of Hannibal’s palm, then nuzzles his cheek into it.

Hannibal digs the knuckles of his right hand into the table to steady himself. “It hardly seems fair to our… our wager.” It’s not so easy to formulate words anymore. “Unless... you surrender, of course.”

Will gently scolds him with a soft tutting. “This isn’t us, as we are _now_. This is the two of us on the night we had ortolans. We’ve just eaten and had our sips of wine. We stare at each other across the table, trying to come up with reasons to keep the night going. Do you see?”

Hannibal looks around as the yellow kitchen in Scarperia is submerged into a deep sea of dark blue. His dining room in Baltimore rises in its place. He’s rather missed that dining table, now that he thinks about it. 

Will, still holding his hand, kisses the tips of his fingers one by one. “Are you going to turn me away because you’re seeing someone else?” 

“No,” Hannibal says in all honesty. “But. I’m not certain I can formally ask you to stay. I’ll murder anyone you want, raze any building or defy whatever authority you wish, but I can’t go so far as to ask you to my bed… yet.”

“We don’t need your bed,” Will says.

Will tugs on his hand and Hannibal understands from the gesture that he’s meant to stand up and trade his seat for Will’s lap. He feels his legs move as if in a dream. Will pushes away from the table to make room for him. Melding against Will is so easy, even as part of his mind screams at him that it’s _too_ easy. It shouldn’t feel so familiar, should it? Not yet.

“Do you know how close I am right now?” Will asks. He pulls Hannibal’s arms around his neck in a loose embrace. Hannibal reaches up to stroke Will’s hair, marveling at having permission to do so. Faintly… very faintly… he can smell the terrible aftershave. “It feels too.... dangerous… to acknowledge any of what I’m feeling is _real_. I’ve told myself I keep getting caught up in the thrill of trying to catch you. I keep layering more bricks around the fort where I keep you in my thoughts.”

Hannibal leans into Will, whispering in his ear. “I suspected you were trying to catch me. Warned myself, but here I am. _Caught_.”

He feels Will’s fingers on his jaw, following the shape of his bones with the softest touch, and then down the midline of his throat. Will’s fingers undo the top button of Hannibal’s shirt, and then the next one down, before slipping inside. Hannibal gasps through his teeth as he feels Will’s thumbnail flick lightly at his nipple.

“Does it shock you when I touch you like this?” Will asks. Hannibal nods against his ear. “Do you want to stop me?” Hannibal thinks a moment, then shakes his head. “What do you want?”

“I want to believe what’s happening,” Hannibal says. “But I can’t, unless you kiss me with truth on the tip of your tongue.”

Will retrieves his hand from the inside of Hannibal’s shirt and brings it up to cup his face. To his surprise, Hannibal smells not ortolans on Will’s breath, but strawberries and chocolate. His confusion only fades when their lips meet and he tastes Will. Is there anything more important in the world? He would give up oxygen for this.

Indeed there _is_ truth in Will’s kiss, and a love that somehow, impossibly stretches backward and forward in time. He loved Will before they ever met, and Will loved him, linked from just this moment.

He feels a wave come over him, like a heady sort of vertigo, shifting his perception of the world around him. He’s weightless and off balance. He’s unmoored. The only solid object holding him in place and orienting him at all is Will’s body. The center of the universe falls exactly where their lips meet.

Will kisses him idly at first, as if he plans to taunt him all night long with a single, drawn-out kiss. Then Hannibal feels Will’s hands under his thighs, repositioning him in his lap. His legs fall open in some kind of autonomic response. Will’s hands fumble, trying to unbuckle both of their belts at the same time.

Will pauses his kisses. “You know I always want you, right?”

Hannibal can only moan. “ _Mm_.” 

“This is worse,” Will says. “Or maybe it’s better. I can’t think straight. Is the Strega known to be an especially potent aphrodisiac?”

“Strega?” Hannibal asks. He shakes his head to clear it and to bring himself back into the present day. Of _course_ that’s why he detected strawberries and chocolate; he’d prepared them himself. “No, it’s not an aphrodisiac. We had no more than a spoonful anyway.”

Will gives him a flicker of a frown. “The chocolate?” He goes back to kissing Hannibal, this time under his chin and down to his Adam’s apple. He keeps working on their belts. “The fruit?” Asked against his throat.

Hannibal feels euphoric. The effect is made more intense when he thinks of himself on that night years ago and how his mind would have burst open from the overwhelming reality of having Will like this. He struggles through it. 

“Th-there’s little to no evidence that there’s any physiological effect from the chemical compounds in so… so-called aphrodisiacs. Not peppers, not chocolate… They’re placebos, more or less.”

“ _Something_ is affecting me,” Will says, pulling away again. “The way I feel right now, fuck! I could ride you all night through tomorrow morning. I could _break_ you. It’s not like it’s been _that_ long since we made love, technically speaking.”

“It feels like forever,” Hannibal says.

Will laughs. “I know, I know. I’m stubborn, but it’s almost enough to make me call off our wager.”

The reminder of the wager restores yet more clarity to Hannibal’s addled mind. As he cements himself securely to the present, he clasps his hands behind his back to keep them from straying back to Will.

“You’re not the only one who feels particularly affected,” Hannibal says. “Although I can rule out witch’s liquor and arugula, I can tell you that not every component of a meal is edible, and that I didn’t intend to become so lost in my own cooking.”

Will narrows his eyes and purses his lips in thought. “Fuck. Why does it just turn me on _more_ to know you’ve outwitted me?”

“It has nothing to do with wit,” Hannibal says. He climbs out of Will’s lap and leans down to kiss the top of his head. “But if I were to give you another clue, I might tell you that tomorrow night I intend to make a pasta _primavera_ for dinner. Sleep well, god of the hillside.”

Will looks as frustrated as Hannibal has ever seen him, but he doesn’t try to keep Hannibal from leaving the kitchen.

***

Hannibal falls asleep more confident than ever that he’ll win the wager, or successfully draw it out until they’re wed. Either way, he cannot lose. The thought of teasing Will, and being teased in return as they continue to find ingenious ways of circumventing their own rules, is a thrilling prospect. 

At some point in the small hours of the morning, when the thinnest sliver of the moon is clawing its way up the black sky with a thumbnail of light, he hears the bedroom door open.

A few seconds later, Will slides into bed behind him and wraps an arm around his middle. He smells very strongly of soap.

“Don’t worry,” Will says when Hannibal stirs. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. I just want to be close to you.”

“Have you been awake this whole time?” Hannibal asks.

“I’ve been reliving our meeting in front of the Primavera at the Uffizi,” Will says. “Kept thinking about all the different ways it could have gone and what it had to do with all your new recipes. Aphrodisiacs had nothing to do with it. You only let me think that was your plan.”

“It was a bit of fun on my part, knowing you would pick up on it.” Hannibal shifts onto his back, and then one more time onto his side to face Will. “There’s one other piece of the puzzle you’re missing.”

Will snuggles against him. “Only one?”

“When we were at the Buonuomo family’s farm, entangled behind the blood-red poppies, I had the distinct feeling that we were together inside my head… and somehow also inside your head at once.” Hannibal closes his eyes to picture it again. “Physically. Not in some envisioned reality in the rooms we share in our memory palace.”

“Conjoined again,” Will says.

“Always,” Hannibal corrects him. “When I saw you the next morning, looking so much like you did the first time I cooked for you, I knew I could--or could try to--join together our past and present meals.”

“To seduce me?” Will asks with a soft laugh.

“To see if it could be done,” Hannibal says. “It was more potent than I anticipated.”

“Tell me about it,” Will snorts. “I jacked off twice just so I could come in here without rutting against you like some kind of ravening creature.”

“That explains the soap,” Hannibal says, wrinkling his nose. He turns onto his other side again and Will scoops him back into a warm, familiar embrace. 

Will nuzzles into the nape of his neck and laughs. Feeling his warm breath is soothing. Why, Hannibal now wonders, did he try so hard to bring the past and present together? Isn’t _now_ truly what matters? Now, as well as the future, of course, in which he’s going to win their wager.

He closes his eyes and listens to Will’s breath slowing and evening out, like a metronome made of air, winding down, signaling his approach towards sleep.

Will yawns--just a tiny thing--and hugs tighter to Hannibal’s body. “G’night, baby. Love you.”

Hannibal’s eyes snap open. He’s wide awake now because a sudden realization hits him hard enough to shake him body and soul.

_He’s not going to win._

_**"arrendersi"** _

He has the decency and supreme patience to wait until morning. He even waits until after his shower and he’s gotten every inch of his body clean and ready for what he hopes will be a thorough dirtying. If he’s not turned completely inside out by the end of the day, he’ll be not only surprised, but tragically disappointed in himself.

All the while, he keeps replaying the last words Will said to him before he fell asleep. A simple phrase… a quaint term of endearment… but one that Will never would’ve used in their early friendship. For all his attempts to weave together the past and the present, Hannibal was reminded of what a reward in itself the “ _now_ ” is. No wager can compete with everything he has _here_.

As soon as he hears Will return from walking Cephi, he races from the bedroom to the top of the stairs clad in nothing but his robe. He runs his hands through his hair to make it presentable and waits for Will to find him.

It only takes a couple of minutes, but after the weeks they’ve spent on the wager and the hour or so Hannibal has abided this morning, it feels so much longer.

Will sees him before starting up the stairs. His face lights up. “Hey, I brought home some of that olive bread you like! That grumpy baker says hello. Well, he actually just frowned at me, but whatever. He didn’t curse, so it’s progress.”

“This is only the third time in my life I have ever surrendered,” Hannibal says.

Will pauses on the third step. “Uh… What?”

“The first time was in the snow outside your house, when the FBI came.” Hannibal steps down once. “The second time was on the lip of the bluff and you held me and I knew we were going over.” He takes one more step down, untying his robe as he does so. “And right now, this is the third time.”

Will takes half a step up, but is obviously too suspicious to go any farther. “How are you surrendering now?”

“Like this,” Hannibal says, and lets his robe fall from his shoulders and onto the stairs. 

Will’s mouth falls open. A lustful glaze comes over his expression. Although it technically hasn’t been that long since they’ve been together, counting the afternoon spent gripped in the poppies, it _has_ been a while since they’ve seen one another fully naked. Over a week, now. It’s the longest they’ve gone since Hannibal was away on business in Santiago.

“Y-you’re teasing me,” Will says. His line of sight has not wavered one atom from Hannibal’s body. “Is this some kind of trick?”

“I surrender,” Hannibal says. “I forfeit. I give up. You win our wager and may lord it over me for the entirety of our marriage.”

“No trick?” Will asks, finally looking up at him.

“I _need_ you,” Hannibal says. He takes his cock in hand and gives it a few slow strokes. “If you don’t accept the win, I’ll have to attempt to bring _some_ modicum of comfort to myself.”

“I accept!” Will says. He peels out of his T-shirt and bounds up two more steps. “Oh thank fuck it’s over!”

Will doesn’t even bother going up the rest of the steps. He drops to his knees on the one below Hannibal. Impatiently, he pulls away Hannibal’s hands as if he were jealous of them getting to touch what he wants. Without preamble or foreplay, he tilts up his head and swallows Hannibal’s cock to the hilt.

Hannibal grabs onto both sides of the railing to keep his balance. The searing heat and slippery wetness of Will’s talented mouth is almost more than he can take all at once. And he’s so _noisy_ . The sounds Will makes are so hungry and so _greedy_. His vocal appreciation for the recent meals they’ve shared are nothing compared to this shameless grunting and slurping. A thought for the open kitchen window darts into Hannibal’s mind and then leaves just as quickly. 

“I… it’s too fast,” Hannibal says. He already feels the pressure mounting in his belly. “You’ll… you’ll make an inexperienced farmboy out of me.”

With the heel of his foot, he feels behind him for the step and starts to back up. His cock slips from Will’s mouth with an especially loud slurp. Hannibal backs up again.

Will rises into a crouch, meeting his eyes with an increasingly voracious look. All he needs are wreaths of wisteria blossoms again to look like a hungry god waiting for his tributes. Will gives him an open-mouthed, feral sort of grin and gets to his feet.

“Yes,” Hannibal says in answer to the unasked question. “ _Yes_.”

Will sprints up the last of the stairs to grab Hannibal about the waist and lift him up against the wall. He pins him there with his chest and belly while he hurriedly divests himself of his own trousers. He bows his head to Hannibal’s neck and pushes his open mouth against it. The small points of his teeth dig in, not far enough to break the skin, but hard enough to contrast the sweet softness of his lips and tongue as he begins to suck. Not for the first time, Hannibal will wear the blossoming bruises with pride. He reaches up to grasp the back of Will’s head, pushing him deeper, encouraging him.

When Will is finally naked, the thick, salty perfume of his arousal hits Hannibal like a wave coming onto shore. 

“Do you know,” he asks, “what it does to me, knowing how much you want me?”

“I have some idea, yes,” Will says, giving his throat a little nip.

Then he resumes his position on his knees, angling his head to give Hannibal the clearest possible display of whatever is about to happen.

“Be careful,” Hannibal says. “I won’t last.”

“Don’t worry,” Will says, licking his lips. “I’ll get you hard again.”

He eases Hannibal’s foreskin to the swollen head of his cock, sliding it back and forth in his fist. His slit begins dripping preejaculate, and Will sticks out his tongue to catch every drop. He draws Hannibal’s foreskin closed at the tip and drinks out of it with enthusiastic sucking sounds. Not even Hannibal’s most artistic culinary efforts pulled such noises out of him.

Hannibal finds himself clenching his jaw so hard that it’s beginning to ache. The effort it takes to stave off his orgasm is… immense.

Then Will tugs the gathered edge of Hannibal’s foreskin as far as he comfortably can over the length of his tongue, holding it in place with his thumb and forefinger. He licks at the inside of the sensitive skin until Hannibal is so hard that there’s very little slack left, but he doesn’t let up. He licks and sucks and flicks little glances up at Hannibal to gauge his reaction. To see that beauty and that raw power looking up at him is at least as pleasurable as the physical sensation itself.

Hannibal’s breath catches. “Ah!”

Will pinches his foreskin tight over his tongue so that he catches all the semen, pulse after pulse, before easing the tension and letting it flood out all at once. The pearly fluid spills off his tongue and out of the corners of his mouth even as he tries to catch it all.

Overwhelmed, Hannibal flails his left hand behind him, aiming for the doorjamb to hold onto, but Will catches it and directs it to his shoulder, as if to say, “ _I’m the one who shook you apart, I’m the one who’ll steady you._ ”

Hannibal grips Will’s shoulder, while remaining as mindful as possible of its many injuries.

Will must feel his hesitation. “It’s all right. It’s been through worse.”

Hannibal pulls him up off the floor. He aimlessly kisses Will’s face, laughing and half delirious and finding his mouth by following the smell of himself. If he’d ever imagined such a thing soon after they met, he would have called it an impossibility.

He pulls back to catch his breath. “I would’ve felt foolish,” he says out loud.

Will gives him a worried look. “Do you regret losing the wager?”

“I surrendered,” Hannibal reminds him. “It’s not winning, but I wouldn’t say it’s losing. As you well know, I always get what I want when I surrender.”

Will reaches down to give his thigh a playful swat. “Come on. I’m not done giving you what you want--or getting what I want.”

He loops one arm around Hannibal’s shoulders as if they’re dancing and stumbles with him across the hall and into the bedroom.

Hannibal happily allows himself to be tangoed backwards into the bed and then laid out upon it. He sprawls on his back, legs open, and inches backwards to let Will climb in after him.

Hannibal raises his chin, challenging. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you just like this,” Will says. He kneels beside Hannibal in the bed before leaning over to place a hand on either side of his shoulders. “Spread out. Like an offering… waiting to be taken.”

“That’s precisely what I am,” Hannibal says. He moves his legs further apart and so Will can take his proper place between them. “You can see how I would in no way ever consider this a loss, can’t you?”

“It’s not a loss for me, either,” Will says, the look on his face as challenging as Hannibal’s own.

“Of course,” Hannibal agrees. He licks his fingers and reaches down to tease himself open. He adjusts the angle of his hips to reach deeper inside himself. “I as much as acknowledged your win when I surrendered. Don’t you feel as though you’ve won?”

“I feel too turned on to think,” Will says. “You know, it’s unfair how sexy you are.”

Hannibal beams. “Thank you. Would you like my ankles on your shoulders?”

Will rolls his eyes but laughs--a throaty, genuine laugh--and shakes his head in teasing disbelief. He doesn’t waste any more time before grabbing the large bottle of lubricant from the bedside table and pouring nearly a fistful into his open palm. He hisses when he slicks his cock with the cold liquid, but a few strokes warms him up again.

Hannibal is still fingering himself when Will begins to push inside.

Hannibal makes a sound that might embarrass him if anyone else heard it, or if he cared what they thought. He doesn’t care much about anything outside the bright, living sting in his flesh as Will’s blunt cockhead settles into him, bumping against his knuckles.

“More?” Will asks. His voice is trembling from restraint.

Hannibal, groaning and senseless, just nods.

Will moves so, so slowly that Hannibal can’t tell if he’s being terribly considerate or just torturing him. He eases a millimeter further inside, then another.

“More?” he asks again.

Hannibal lifts his head off the pillow. “You could break me in half and I would sigh from the ecstacy of it.”

Will raises an eyebrow at him, then gives him a cocky smile as if accepting a dare. He pulls Hannibal’s hand away and buries himself fully, deeply inside with one long, steady, sopping wet slide.

Hannibal sees stars. “Yes, yes, yes...”

Will eases out before pushing inside again, putting his full weight into it, so that Hannibal is pinned against the mattress. He does it again, and again, slowly at first, and then picking up speed. His breaths are loud and shaky, because even now he’s holding back. He whispers “ah god, _god_ ,” when he bumps Hannibal’s prostate as if he could feel it himself, and perhaps he can. His keen empathy and their remarkable bond work in concert. 

“I meant it,” Hannibal says, “when I said you could break me.”

Will shakes his head, flinging drops of sweat from his hair. “I need you whole. We’re not done yet.”

“Then break me just a little,” Hannibal says. “I _need_ you.”

Will nods and takes hold of Hannibal’s right ankle. He pushes until Hannibal’s buttocks raise up off the bed and he finds himself staring at the side of his own knee. His semitendinosus muscle strains taut as a badly strung harpsichord. 

“Too much?” Will asks.

Hannibal digs his other ankle into the small of Will’s back and meets his eyes.

That’s enough of an answer for Will, who edges forward on his knees that little bit of extra room he’s been given, and drives his cock home again.

There’s enough force and momentum to rattle the heavy wooden frame of their bed every time Will thrusts into him.

“Perfect,” Hannibal says with a moan. “Ah, it’s perfect.”

Will slows his frantic rhythm only when he seeks to delay his orgasm, pausing now and then to add more lubricant, but he can only wait so long. His face, neck and chest are fiery red as sweat pours in rivulets down his face and neck. He swipes at his brow with his forearm, trying in vain to clear his vision. He bares his teeth until that no longer affords him enough oxygen and he pants for breath through his open mouth.

With a great, heaving groan, Will spills inside him. Hot, erratic pulses to match his heartbeat. He strokes through it, letting go of Hannibal’s ankle as he falls forward, fingers digging into the bed for balance.

Hannibal reaches down the middle of Will’s back, down the sweet cleft of his buttocks, and pushes two fingers into him to feel the muscular spasms of his release.

Will, still inside him, rolls him onto his side to spoon him from behind. He lazily continues to fuck him until his cock is soft and so slick that it lands upon the inside of Hannibal’s inner thigh, warm and spent.

Hannibal could fall asleep like this, but Will still isn’t done.

“Mm?” It’s about all the question Hannibal can manage.

“I promised I’d get you hard again,” Will reminds him, and crawls back down between Hannibal’s thighs.

The first reacquaintance of his cock and Will’s tongue nearly flings him off the bed. He’s still so sensitive from Will’s previous attentions that it’s a shock to his body.

“Too much?” Will asks.

“Yes,” Hannibal says. “But don’t stop, please.” 

Will goes back to sucking him, using his arms to hold his thighs in place when he moves too much, unable to keep himself dutifully still. Slowly--more slowly than when he was a young man--his erection is coaxed back into existence. 

“Only you,” Hannibal says.

“Damn right only me,” Will says with a note of pride. He uses his fingers to gather together what remains of the lubricant and seminal fluid leaking out onto the bed and slicks Hannibal’s cock. “Only _ever_ me.”

With that, he turns around and gets on all fours with his shapely ass high in the air. He crosses his arms on the bed and rests his forehead on the backs of his hands. He wiggles his hips as if he were skipping a lure across the surface of a stream.

Hannibal digs around in the sheets for the bottle of lubricant and adds more to the sticky-wet amount Will already gave him. Most of it he strokes onto his cock, but he also applies to fingers worth inside Will’s hole. Will immediately pushes back against him for more. Hannibal sits on his heels with his knees apart.

“Sit back,” Hannibal instructs him.

Will glances over his shoulder for clarification. “Mm?”

Hannibal strokes his cock and aims it towards Will demonstratively. “Sit on me.”

Will settles back as Hannibal pushes his cock slowly inside. “Fuck yes,” Will moans. “Oh, I’ve been needing this.”

“Back a little more,” Hannibal tells him. Will moves until he’s more or less sitting backwards astride Hannibal’s lap. He controls the pace at which he’s skewered onto Hannibal’s cock. Hannibal can feel him pushing out with his muscles to ease the passage, and with a rough grunt and a swivel of his hips, Will is fully surrounding him. “There you are… there you are.”

Will takes a shaky breath. “What--what do you want me to do?”

“Whatever you want,” Hannibal says. “What do you need? Take it. Tell me.”

Will leans back, turning his neck so he can catch Hannibal’s lips in a kiss. The angle only allows for sloppy contact, and Will darts out his tongue to lick a stripe down the side of Hannibal’s face. 

“Kiss my neck,” Will says. “I want to feel your teeth--the way I did for you.”

Hannibal does as he’s been told, moving aside the damp hair at the nape of Will’s neck and kissing him there. He lightly bites at the prominent buds of his vertebrae as he lets his hands settle on the sides of Will’s waist. 

“Stretch up your arms,” Hannibal tells him. He nips at Will’s scapulae as they shift like nascent wings beneath his skin. He slides his hands down Will’s belly where a thick patch of hair starts just below his navel, then lets his fingers trace their way up until he has Will’s nipples between his thumbs and index fingers. He gives them a playful squeeze, eliciting a soft gasp from Will. He bows his head to kiss the nape of Will’s neck again. “What do you want now?”

Will unseats himself from Hannibal’s lap, letting his cock slip free. He turns on one knee to face Hannibal.

“Lie down again, please.”

“Of course,” Hannibal says. He does it, but keeps himself propped up on his elbows. “And now?”

Will throws one leg over Hannibal’s hips, straddling him again, this time so they’re facing one another. He reaches behind him for Hannibal’s cock and holds it steady and he sinks back down on it. His eyelids flutter and he bites at his lower lip from the intensity of the pleasure that he feels. 

Hannibal feels it, too, as well as his own. If he hadn’t already climaxed once, the dual sensation of seeing and feeling Will’s utter bliss would have rocked a flood out of him.

He stretches out on the bed, letting his elbows go out from under him as Will begins to rhythmically move atop him. He lightly scratches the tips of his fingers through the hair of Will’s thighs, enjoying the little jumps and shudders of the muscles so taut beneath the skin.

“Take as long as you need,” Hannibal says softly. He rubs his thumbs in small circles over Will’s knees. “I can last this time.”

Orgasm is no longer a living, breathing emergency for either of them. This time, they can experience one another for the simple, miraculous joy of being together. They can be close, melded into one, without the frantic pace of resolution, or the wink-and-nod excuses sought after yet again breaking one of their own wager requirements. There is fun and reward in teasing and playing, taunting one another and grasping desperately for creative ways of coupling within the rules they themselves had defined. But there is a joyous freedom in having Will unleashed in his appetites, and knowing that Will is savoring the same from him.

At some point, after an unknown and unexperienced passage of time, Will slows in his already leisurely movements until he’s more or less just sitting on Hannibal’s cock with one hand on the bed for support.

Will laughs and it’s barely more than a breath. “God damn it. I’m exhausted. I said I wanted to ride you all night and all morning--and I do, truly--but I’m this close to passing out.”

Hannibal bends his knees up behind Will, giving himself something to lean against. “Want me to take over?”

“That’d be great,” Will says. “Then maybe we could take a nap.”

Hannibal sits up and, cradling Will in his arms, flips them both. Will, now on his back, stretches for a pillow and tucks it under his head.

“Would you rather skip straight to the nap?” Hannibal asks.

“I want you to come inside me first,” Will says. “I’ll sleep better.”

Hannibal lowers himself on top of Will, providing the solid, steady weight that Will enjoyed when they first began making love in Cuba. He is indescribably happy when Will raises his legs just enough to cradle him in place. It is so familiar and loving, like hearing Will call him “baby” as he drifts off to sleep.

After that, it only takes a few minutes and slowly moving together before they orgasm again. As requested, he comes inside Will, and kisses him through the quiet aftershocks that tremor through their bodies.

When it’s over, Will yawns and opens his arms. Hannibal nestles into them and receives several drowsy kisses on top of his head.

“Mm,” he says.

“Mm-hm,” Will agrees, and yawns again.

***

When they wake up later, Hannibal learns that Will took Cephi to the daycare after their walk that morning, before heading home.

“ _I_ was going to surrender,” Will admits.

“So, in a way,” Hannibal says, “it’s still a tie.”

Will laughs and gives him a shove against his shoulder.

They roll out of bed and spend enough time in the bathroom to wipe the most obvious patches of stickiness from their bodies with warm washcloths. They’ll have a bath together in the morning when they’re not about to have dinner and pick up their darling dog.

Will pauses in the middle of brushing his teeth. “Earlier, you said you would’ve felt foolish. What did you mean?”

Hannibal thinks back to the events earlier in the day. “Oh! Only that if I had imagined when we met that I would someday be kissing you in Italy weeks before our wedding, I wouldn’t have believed myself. Even in the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, I would have thought myself uselessly wishful.”

Will raises his eyebrows at him in the mirror. “Trying to tie together the past and present again?”

“The arrow of time carries us relentlessly forward, but it also leaves us in the past, at every moment of our lives. We exist now, but we also exist then, in nearly infinite slivers of time--”

Will spits foam into the sink in front of him, interrupting him. “The important thing is we’re together.”

“I have to agree,” Hannibal says.

Hannibal heads into the closet to pick out a pair of shorts that shows off his legs and a happily floral shirt that disguises him as a slightly confused tourist.

“We going out to eat?” Will calls out from the bathroom.

“I have one more recipe for us!” Hannibal calls out.

He closes his eyes and reaches into the well-stocked drawer in the cottage kitchen tucked into his memory palace. He takes out his recipe box, inkwell, and dip pen. He retrieves an old card and begins to amend the recipe.

_" ~~Pasta~~ Primavera" _

_Ingredients:_

~~_enough fresh pasta for two_ ~~ _two lovesick fools_

 ~~_springtime vegetables_ ~~ _one Uffizi Gallery_

 ~~_butter_ ~~ ~~_tell him you love him_~~ _speak poetically of remembering him_

 ~~ _olive oil_~~ _eschew every chance to change the future_

~~_absolutely best quality Parmigiano Reggiano_ ~~

~~_salt and pepper_ ~~

_Method:_

~~_Blanch handful of spring vegetables such as asparagus and new onions, peas. Saute quickly with mushroom and sweet tomatoes. Boil pasta in adequately salted water until al dente and add to vegetables. Over medium heat, add one or more ladles of pasta water, two spoons of butter, and cheese. Flip together to blend. Sauce should be glossy, but light._ ~~

_Toss two lovesick fools together in gallery, then separate and let stew for three years. You’ll eventually kill a dragon and adopt a dog together. He’s even going to propose to you. When he suggests a silly wager before the wedding, accept and agree to his terms._

_You’re not going to lose._

  
  


-the end- 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> La Scommessa Toscana: the Tuscan wager  
> Le ricette del mostro: the monster’s recipes  
> Involtini di vitella al latte: veal rolls in milk  
> Porchetta Sfacciato: impudent pork  
> Di tanto in tanto: now and then  
> Zuppa di pollo con gnocchi: chicken soup with gnocchi  
> Arrendersi: surrendering 
> 
> (Most of the recipes are my own creation. I am a good cook, if I may say so, but I have not made any of them so proceed with caution if you try them)
> 
> Next chapter coming soon!!


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